When someone begins to get serious about nature photography, generally the first thing they shoot is a sunset. After all, they’re pretty, available to everyone, and happen every day — and usually the final image is disappointing. They’ll then take it into Photoshop, and, using the most powerful tools known to photography, pump up the colors until the image resembles a Leroy Neiman painting. All of this in an effort to salvage what is basically a picture of the sun. This is not to imply a lack of skill, but rather a lack of experience. Understandably, the lure of something shiny goes back to pre-history. They’ve fallen into the “postcard trap.”

A common belief among beginning photographers is that landscapes must be “pretty.” Saturated colors, maybe some hills, and of course, a sunset. Very much a “wish you were here” vibe. To be fair, some photographers have made a career of this, selling some of the most expensive prints on the market.

The photographer wanting to create art, however, has to take this several steps farther. A landscape is not about how it looks in reality, or how one wishes it looks. It’s about how it feels. Every landscape… a rugged mountain, a simple hill, a field or a seascape, should evoke something in the viewer beyond “That’s really pretty.” They have personalities that are filtered through the mind of the photographer and then expressed interpretively with skills acquired from experience.

Take a look at the image that accompanies this article. Sure, it’s a dramatic waterfall, but it’s also an image of the Earth. As I stood there, the first thing that struck me was permanence. This granite, unyielding, has seen millennia come and go like days. It had a spiritual presence. Humbling. How could I put that in a photograph?

My first concern was the waterfall. I didn’t want to freeze it in place, like an icicle, or blur it out of recognition so it looks like long strands of silky white hair. It’s about power. This water had incredible force. I wanted to convey its sound in a picture. I managed to find a way to show it falling in sheets, to express the sheer mass of the water. The other element is the rock. The falling mist enhanced the surface and texture and I tried to bring that out. The granite almost seems alive and flowing. Everything else that I did, I can’t even remember. Minor adjustments, emphasizing this, subduing that, all in the service of the personality of the scene as I felt it, of being in the presence of something greater. 

Art is not just a pretty picture. It’s an image that expresses what the artist felt and it moves you every time you see it. For that reason, it never grows old.

You can’t do that with a postcard.